The Pleasures That May Await

In my dream I am reading a newspaper article by David Brooks.

David is talking about his lover, and how they have grown apart. His lover’s bright eyes, Brooks writes, have gone dim, and David is sad to admit that it is because their relationship has grown stale. David is losing interest, and this is reflected in his lover’s dimming eyes and loss of power.

The boyfriend is a force, a mentor to Brooks. They have made a life together, and the boyfriend’s calm assurance has influenced David’s life and made it better, but he needs to be nurtured to maintain his strength, and Brooks has found someone else, a handsome boy he barely knows and with whom he has become obsessed. He doesn’t know what it will be like to be with this new boy, but it’s all he can think about, and his needy lover makes him uncomfortable, guilty, and finally resentful.

Brooks pretends to nurture his old lover, and this brings him back to life, but it is a zombie life. The light in his eyes returns, only now it is not a confident guiding light, but a harsh, cold artificial light. It is too bright, and as his eyes gleam ever brighter, others notice and react with revulsion and fear. All he wants is for David to love him like he used to, and he is trying to act as if that is what’s happening, but he knows that what he has is unreal.

Meanwhile Brooks aches to see this boy and hold him, but there are so many obstacles: his work, his chores around their apartment and their busy social life. He can’t find time for a seduction.

He dreams of soft caresses that actually bring tears to his eyes, and of wanton, sweaty fucking. In his fantasy, there is a big hole in the middle, and that hole is all the things he doesn’t know about this boy: his education, his background, his political positions, his religion, his friends. But he is not interested in that, and he looks away from that empty place and toward the pleasures that may await.